Lotteries have been adopted by many state governments as a means of generating additional tax revenue for projects such as highway construction, new schools, and public works programs. As state lotteries have proliferated, lotteries have employed a series of pull tab games that closely resemble casino style gaming machines in their play.
Commonly, lotteries issue instant win game tickets containing characters indicating whether a prize has been won. The Characters are obscured so that they are not readily visible to persons prior to their purchase of the ticket. The characters may be obscured paper “pull tabs” secured by perforated edges which must be torn or burst. The purchaser “plays” the lottery ticket by purchasing it, and removing the covering to reveal the characters showing whether the card is a winner. If the card contains a winning combination of characters, the player may redeem it for the prize designated.
Pull tab instant tickets are also utilized in charitable games, promotional sweepstakes, bingo parlors, and bars where allowed by law.
From a competitive standpoint, the pull tab ticket suffers from a number of drawbacks. These drawbacks can be appreciated by comparing instant win tickets to their main legal competition, regional casino facilities. Casinos offer similar games, but in a much easier to use system. Either an attendant or machine tells the player how to play and whether they have won. The player is not required to read fine print and figure out rules. Additionally, casino games allow a more fast-paced game play than instant pull tab tickets. Moreover, casino machines include lights, computer graphics, and sound to stimulate player interest, something not possible with a pull tab ticket.
A number of vending machines for selling instant pull tab tickets have been patented. Most of these machines operate similarly to existing non-gambling vending machines, as their primary two functions are to collect money and to dispense a purchased item, which in the case of a pull tab ticket machine is a pull tab ticket. Typically, the purchaser inserts money and pushes buttons on the machine to indicate the type of ticket and number of tickets desired. The machine then vends the tickets, and the purchaser receives whatever change is appropriate. Patents disclosing this type of vending machine include U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,222,624, and 6,886,728.
Patents have also been issued for devices to remove the waxy material from scratch-off tickets. Such patents include U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,765,842, 5,253,383, 5,355,543, 5,402,549, 5,907,882. These devices are adequate as an alternative to manual removal of the scratch-off material, but are not believed to be fast enough or thorough enough to allow the high-speed scanning and vending of tickets required for operation in connection with the device of the present invention.
Additionally, patents have also been issued for devices that simulate slot machine play from information supplied by a central computer server (see, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,733,385, 6,991,541, 7,192,348). These machines are usually considered class III gambling devices, requiring expensive and onerous state licenses, or adoption by the state lottery commission in the jurisdictions where they are implemented.
Patents have also been issued for devices that use a proprietary ticket design to reveal a computer barcode printed on a ticket (see. e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 5,980,385). The ticket design utilized by these machines is proprietary and non-standard, and is not widely accepted or legal outside of certain Native American gaming establishments in the United States.
Many patents have been issued for scanning devices and optical character recognition programs that convert barcode or printed text into a computer graphic display. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,203,663, 7,203,383, and 7,203,361 for recent patents in this area.
Applicant has been issued U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,210,921 and 8,192,268 which describe two possible methods for removing the covering pull tabs from a pull tab instant ticket, passing the ticket through an optical scanning device, reading the characters contained thereon, vending the ticket, and displaying the results by means of computer generated audiovisual display.
The present application expands on U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,210,921 and 8,192,268, as well as describing a new apparatus, encompassing two methods of utilizing pull tab instant tickets in conjunction with a optical scanner and computer display to simulate a slot machine. In the preferred embodiment of the apparatus these two methods are combined in one machine, but could be produced and marketed in separate machines.
The first method of utilizing pull tab tickets the apparatus accepts payment, mechanically opens the pull tab ticket inside the vending machine, optically scans the ticket, displays the ticket results in a computer graphics display, and vends the ticket.
When performing the method of utilizing pull tab tickets the apparatus passes a previously opened pull tab ticket through an optical scanner and utilizes a printing device or specialized preprinted ink to reveal the results of the pull tab ticket on the ticket in human readable characters. The ticket ejects once the optically scanned results are displayed on a computer graphics display.
It is the hope that the present invention will bridge the gap between paper-based gambling methods such as pull tab tickets, and computer based video gaming devices. It is believed that the device would have the benefit of adding the excitement of an actual video game machine to the sale and distribution of instant tickets.